Gold, empire and the Uitlander question

The war grew out of the collision between British imperial ambition and Boer republican independence - with gold at its centre.

The discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886 turned the South African Republic (Transvaal) into the richest state in the region. Britain wanted control of that wealth and dominance over the whole of southern Africa.

• Uitlanders (mostly British migrants on the goldfields) were denied full voting rights by President Paul Kruger's government.
• British officials, led by High Commissioner Alfred Milner, used the Uitlander grievance as a lever for war.
• The failed Jameson Raid (1895-96) had already deepened Boer distrust of Britain.
• Mine-owners and imperial interests wanted a stable, British-controlled labour and tax system on the Rand.

Two republics against the British Empire

War began on 11 October 1899 after Kruger's ultimatum demanding British troops withdraw from the borders expired.

The South African Republic (Transvaal) and the Orange Free State allied against the world's largest empire. Britain eventually deployed close to 450,000 troops, drawn from across the empire, against roughly 60,000-88,000 Boer fighters on commando.

• Early Boer successes: the sieges of Mafeking, Kimberley and Ladysmith.
• 'Black Week' (December 1899) saw heavy British defeats at Colenso, Magersfontein and Stormberg.
• Britain then poured in reinforcements under Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener.

From set-piece battles to guerrilla war

After Britain captured the Boer capitals, the Boers refused to surrender and switched to hit-and-run guerrilla warfare.

By mid-1900 Britain had taken Bloemfontein and Pretoria and formally annexed the republics. But Boer commandos - the bittereinders ('bitter-enders') - fought on across the veld, attacking railways and supply lines under leaders like De Wet, De la Rey and Smuts.

• Kitchener answered with a scorched-earth policy: burning farms, killing livestock and destroying crops.
• A network of blockhouses and barbed wire was built to fence in and trap the commandos.
• Civilians - Boer and African - were removed from the land and placed in camps.

Camps for Boer women and children

Tens of thousands of Boer women and children were interned in overcrowded camps where disease killed on a massive scale.

As farms were destroyed, the British herded Boer families into concentration camps. Overcrowding, poor sanitation, inadequate food and epidemics of measles, typhoid and dysentery made the camps deadly - especially for children.

• About 26,000-28,000 Boer inmates died, the large majority of them children under sixteen.
• Rations were sometimes cut for families whose men were still fighting.
• The camps became a lasting wound in Afrikaner memory and nationalism.

The Black concentration camps

Africans were interned in separate camps that were long ignored in the histories of the war.

Black South Africans were not bystanders. Many were displaced by scorched earth and forced into separate, segregated camps, where conditions were often even worse and rations smaller than in the white camps. Many were also made to labour for the British war effort.

• At least 14,000-20,000 Black inmates are recorded as having died; the true toll was probably higher and was poorly documented.
• Their suffering was excluded from official war narratives for most of the 20th century.
• Recovering this history challenges the idea that the war was only a 'white man's war'.

Emily Hobhouse and the outcry

A British welfare campaigner exposed the camps to the world and forced an official inquiry.

To keep these Camps going is murder to the children. Emily Hobhouse, on the concentration camps, 1901

Emily Hobhouse visited the camps in 1901 and reported the appalling conditions to the British public. Her campaign shamed the government and led to the Fawcett Commission, whose reforms slowly reduced the death rate.

• Her reports split British public opinion about the war.
• The government first dismissed, then partly acted on, her findings.
• She is still honoured in South Africa for exposing the camps.

The Treaty of Vereeniging

The Boers surrendered, ending their independence but winning promises that protected white interests.

The war ended with the Treaty (Peace) of Vereeniging, signed on 31 May 1902. The two Boer republics became British colonies, but Britain offered generous terms to reconcile the Boers - including money to rebuild farms and a crucial political concession.

• The Transvaal and Orange Free State became British colonies.
• Britain promised 3 million in reconstruction aid and eventual self-government.
• Crucially, the question of the African franchise was postponed until after self-government - which meant it was left to white colonists to decide.

From war to Union, 1899-1910

1. 1899 War begins (11 October); early Boer sieges
2. 1900 Britain takes Bloemfontein and Pretoria; guerrilla war and scorched earth begin
3. 1901 Concentration camps at their deadliest; Emily Hobhouse's exposure
4. 1902 Treaty of Vereeniging ends the war (31 May)
5. 1908-09 National Convention drafts a constitution
6. 1910 Union of South Africa established (31 May)

Rebuilding towards a single state

British 'Reconstruction' rebuilt the economy and pushed the four colonies towards political union.

After the war, Alfred Milner and his young administrators (the 'Kindergarten') set out to anglicise and modernise the colonies, revive the gold mines and rebuild farms. Economic integration - a shared railway and customs system - made political union seem the logical next step.

• The mining economy was restarted, at first partly with imported Chinese labour.
• The Transvaal and Orange River Colony were granted responsible (self-)government by 1907.
• Business and political leaders increasingly argued that a single united state would be stronger and cheaper to run.

Negotiating the constitution of Union

White delegates from the four colonies met to design a united South Africa - and to decide who would be included in it.

Delegates from the Cape, Natal, Transvaal and Orange River colonies met at the National Convention to draft a constitution. Every delegate was white; Africans, Coloureds and Indians were excluded from the negotiations that decided their political future.

• They chose a unitary state (strong central government) rather than a federation.
• The franchise was a bitter dispute: the Cape kept its qualified, non-racial vote, while the northern colonies allowed whites only.
• The result was written into the South Africa Act, passed by the British Parliament in 1909.

The Union of South Africa

On 31 May 1910 the four colonies became one country - a self-governing dominion within the British Empire.

The Union of South Africa joined the Cape, Natal, Transvaal and Orange Free State into a single dominion. Louis Botha, a former Boer general, became the first Prime Minister, with Jan Smuts as a leading minister - white reconciliation, achieved at the expense of the black majority.

• Political power rested firmly with the white minority; the black majority was excluded from central politics.
• Pretoria became the administrative capital, Cape Town the legislative capital and Bloemfontein the judicial capital.
• The Union laid the political foundations that would later produce segregation and, from 1948, apartheid.

What the war and Union left behind

The events of 1899-1910 set the pattern for 20th-century South Africa.

Review: the South African War and Union

The war for gold and empire ended in a peace and a Union that united whites and excluded the black majority.

Between 1899 and 1910 South Africa moved from a devastating imperial war, through concentration camps that killed tens of thousands of civilians of all races, to a united state built on white political power. Use the questions below to consolidate and to argue with the evidence.